'Slam dunk' comment on Iraq distorted, Tenet says NEW YORK (Reuters) -- A former U.S. spy chief accused President Bush's administration of ruining his reputation by misusing a "slam dunk" comment he made during a White House meeting ahead of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Former CIA Director George Tenet told CBS Television's "60 Minutes" that the administration leaked his comment as opposition to the war grew when no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. "You don't do this. You don't throw somebody overboard just because it's a deflection. Is that honorable? It's not honorable to me," Tenet said in an interview to be broadcast Sunday. Tenet said his comment did not refer to whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but related to what information could be used to make a public case for the war. The "slam-dunk" comment first surfaced in journalist Bob Woodward's 2004 book, "Plan of Attack," which portrayed Tenet as assuring Bush that finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq would be a virtual certainty. "We can put a better case together for a public case. That's what I meant," Tenet told "60 Minutes." "I'll never believe that what happened that day informed the president's view or belief of the legitimacy or the timing of this war. Never!" said Tenet, whose memoirs "At the Center of the Storm" are due to be published next week. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said she had not seen the book and would not comment on it. The expression "slam dunk," used originally to describe a basketball move, has come to mean something that can be done with near certainty. The 2003 Iraq invasion was justified largely by intelligence that Hussein had such weapons. No such weapons were found, and the prewar intelligence effort has since been condemned by a presidential commission as one of the most damaging failures in recent U.S. history. Tenet, who served under Bush and former President Bill Clinton, resigned in July 2004 amid widespread criticism over intelligence lapses that also involved the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington. Tenet had been appointed in 1997. Tenet -- whom Bush awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest U.S. civilian award, in December 2004 -- said he does not know exactly who leaked his comment, but that "it's the most despicable thing that ever happened to me." He said the most difficult part was continuing to hear senior administration officials such as Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice refer to his comment as though they had to hear him "say 'slam dunk' to go to war with Iraq." "You listen to that and they never let it go. I mean, I became campaign talk. I was a talking point. 'Look at the idiot (who) told us and we decided to go to war.' Well, let's not be so disingenuous," Tenet said. "Let's everybody just get up and tell the truth. Tell the American people what really happened," he said. http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/04/26/tenet.slam.dunk.reut/index.html
He also tells us this, mark. i assume you'll accept it at face value as well. http://www.nysun.com/article/53222 [rquoter]Tenet: Aggressive Interrogations Brought U.S. Valuable Information By JOSH GERSTEIN Staff Reporter of the Sun April 26, 2007 A CIA program to administer aggressive interrogations to top Al Qaeda leaders brought America more valuable information about planned terror plots than all of the government's other intelligence gathering efforts, a former director of central intelligence, George Tenet, has declared. Mr. Tenet said the program was needed to deal with threats that emerged after September 11, 2001, including reports that there might be nuclear bombs in New York. "I know that this program has saved lives. I know we've disrupted plots," Mr. Tenet said in a "60 Minutes" interview set to air Sunday before the release of his new book. "I know this program alone is worth more than the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us," he said. Mr. Tenet, who led the CIA between 1997 and 2004, defended the aggressive interrogations as appropriate to deal with figures such as the reputed mastermind of the 2001 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The former director said Mr. Mohammed initially rebuffed questioning by saying, "I'll talk to you guys when you take me to New York and I can see my lawyer." Mr. Tenet declined to discuss the specific interrogation techniques, but members of the intelligence community have said they included a method known as waterboarding, which involves pouring water over a prisoner's face to create the sensation of drowning. Human-rights groups contend waterboarding is torture and amounts to a mock execution. Critics have also said it is impossible to know whether less aggressive methods might have worked. "We don't torture people," the former director told CBS. "The context is it's post-September 11. I've got reports of nuclear weapons in New York City, apartment buildings that are going to be blown up, planes that are going to fly into airports all over again, plot lines that I don't know. … I'm struggling to find out where the next disaster is going to occur." Mr. Tenet's book, "At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA," published by HarperCollins, is scheduled to go on sale Monday.[/rquoter]
Well he kind of confirms what we're known all along; that the administration advocates torture doesn’t he?
Some other juicy revelations from Tenet's upcoming book. -- the context of the "slam dunk" comment -- And then there's this. The book portrays the president as slow to accept the reality in Iraq. -- http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003109.php
]How long till he sends back his medal that Bush gave him? I guess even Tenet has to worry abouut his Legacy". Bush Honors Tenet, Franks, Bremer Key Figures In Iraq War Given Presidential Medals Of Freedom WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2004 President Bush presents retired Gen. Tommy Franks, Tuesday, Dec. 14, 2004, with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in the East Room of the White House. (AP) Quote "This honor goes to three men who have played pivotal roles in great events and whose efforts have made our country more secure and advanced the cause of human liberty." President Bush (AP) President Bush awarded the nation's highest civilian honor Tuesday to three men central to his Iraq policy, saying they had played "pivotal roles in great events." Mr. Bush presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom to retired Gen. Tommy Franks, who oversaw combat in Afghanistan and the initial invasion of Iraq, former CIA Director George Tenet and former Iraq administrator L. Paul Bremer. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/12/14/iraq/main660994.shtml
This seems like a rather weak explanation for using that term. Is Tenet saying that instead of taking a Rafer Alston three we should throw it into Yao in the paint? If that is his explanation it doesn't sound any better since what he's saying is that the intel is a tough sell at the moment so we need to make it more flashy and if so the public will buy it. In other words he's arguing for misleading the public by presenting the intel in a far better light than it is.
why did this scumbag wait all this time to speak up - seems like he is just trying to sell books here. why did he accept the presidential medal of freedom if he knew all this? the deaths of all those american soldiers and iraqis are on him too.
Just finished watching 60 minutes,they had a segment on Tenet.Loved his quote,"all we have in this world is truth and honor."
^ I saw the 60 Minutes piece and he seemed really defensive and I found some of it rather skeptical. This piece and his book really strike me as him covering his @ss.
Well yes. On the otherhand, he waited to get Bush and especially Cheney back until it had maximum effect. Dems who will investigate in Congress. On ABC they showed Cheney repeating over and over in various clips the slam dunk thing and sort of blaming Tenet --cluding in the last 12 months. I guess Tenet got tired of it, Medal of Freedom or not. The first time I have seen Tenet act devious and sort of ballsy like you might expect from the CIA Director. Hey, this revelation might even make Hayes reconsider that possibly he was mislead to making an honest error (on Hayes' part) concerning the Iraq War or support6ing the vote to authorize Bush to do whatever he wanted or however Hayes would parse it. There will always be the 10%-20% who will always claim it was a "noble cause" that would have been a wonderful episode in typical American genrosity except for liberals, the press and the the majority of the American people etc. A Bush spokesperson merely said that the CIA Director did not have access to all the info they had. That should satisfy Rush and the GOP base.
So you trust Bush-Cheney-Rice etc. more? I only saw a clip on ABC News from 60 minutes. They seemed to view Tenet as credible as Cheney. Maybe just reporting?
Why Didn't George Tenet Just Resign? Does this sound familiar? A senior Bush administration official plays a key role in selling the Iraq war debacle to the American public, resigns a few years later, and then tries to distance himself from Bush and the war by writing a book or talking to Bob Woodward, portraying himself as a poor, hapless victim who knew the truth at the time and really, really wanted to tell it, but, somehow, just had no choice but to go along. What else could he do? Each story shares the same fatal flaw. It requires that the remedy that was readily available -- resignation -- did not exist. The latest in this tawdry lineup is George Tenet. Poor George Tenet. Flogging his book, At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA, on 60 Minutes, Tenet tells Scott Pelley about how his phrase "slam dunk" was misused by the Bush administration. Tenet, you see, didn't mean that Hussein had WMD, he only meant it was a "slam dunk" that a public case could be made that Hussein had WMD. I can't really see that the distinction matters, but Tenet apparently does. "I became campaign talk," Tenet tells Pelley, "I was a talking point. 'Look at what the idiot told us, and we decided to go to war.' Well, let's not be so disingenuous. Let's stand up. This is why we did it. This is why, this is how we did it. And let's tell, let's everybody tell the truth." Great -- except he's about four years too late. Tenet seems to believe there's a major distinction between lying and standing by silently while others lie, and then proudly receiving a Medal of Freedom from the liars. He could have simply resigned and freed himself to "tell the truth." Tenet acts as if resignation were not an option. But it was. And the passion and anger he displays now in the service of book sales could have been used then in the service of his country. "It's the most despicable thing I've ever heard in my life," Tenet tells Pelley. "You don't do this... You're gonna throw somebody overboard just because it's a deflection? Is that honorable? It's not honorable to me." The problem is, the honorable train left the station a long time ago, and Tenet wasn't on board. But others were. Like John Brady Kiesling, a career U.S. diplomat, who resigned from the State Department. And wrote in his resignation letter to Colin Powell: That, Mr. Tenet, is how it's done. It's now too late for George Tenet. But can someone please remind Paul Wolfowitz and Alberto Gonzales, as they are pathetically fighting tooth and nail to cling to their jobs, that there is another option. And how long do you think it's going to be after the end of the Bush administration before we are treated to General Petraeus' memoir explaining how the surge would have worked "if only he had been given the troops he needed to implement it properly." So here is a plea to all Bush administration officials: Now is the time. If, like John Brady Kiesling, you're finding it hard to reconcile what you see going on around you with what you know to be the truth, do the right thing and resign. While it matters. As Tenet says on 60 Minutes: "At the end of the day, the only thing you have is trust and honor in this world. It's all you have. All you have is your reputation built on trust and your personal honor. And when you don't have that anymore, well, there you go." George Tenet and I are both Greek and there is a great word for it: filotimo. There are still lives to be saved if a few administration officials have the guts to do what they know is right now -- instead of five years from now while flogging their books. Any takers? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/why-didnt-george-tenet-j_b_47226.html
An open letter to George Tenet, written by group of former CIA and other intelligence officials, urges the former CIA Director “to dedicate a significant portion of his royalties to soldiers and families of those killed or wounded in Iraq.” They write: http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/04/letter_to_georg.html
I don't trust any of them. Tenet's comments in my opinion came off as very defensive and combative, on a few issues he refused to address in any depth, such as regarding torture, and on the "slam dunk" comment his explanation still strikes me as odd and not much better as he is saying that the intel needs to be spun in away to the a "slam dunk" to the public. That would contradict another statement he made in the interview that intelligence people, like him, are faithful to the truth. A statement he further contradicted again in the interview when in regard to the Powell UN presentation he said that intelligence people don't always present the truth. While Tenet says that he takes responsibility most of his interview seemed to be him saying he had been used by the Admin.. If he was really that ill used by the Admin. Why did he even make the "slam dunk" statement in the first place to argue for spinning the intel? Why fully support Powell's UN statement if he knew there was some questons regarding the intel?
